Afternoon Drive withStephen Grootes

Bala Books is a child-authored book publishing company that publishes children's books that are authored by children and youth of South Africa from the age of seven. Thanks to a recent partnership with Standard Bank, Bala Books delivers Book-Writing courses aimed at schooling the youth in the anthologies of authoring books, at the Standard Bank Incubator on Saturdays.

The young writers are paired with fully vetted Graduate mentors who specialise in a range of disciplines including linguistics; education; creative-writing and african literature to tutor them in the aspects of authoring children's books.

Parents can attend a one-day free book-writing workshop at the Standard Bank Incubator. These workshops are designed to give parents a practical demonstration of what their children can learn by signing on for the full six-week course on writing with Bala Books. The full six-week book-writing course comprises twelve modules at a cost of R350.00 per/module. Each child will walk away with a keepsake storybook of their work.

According to South African statistics, 75% of South African children's reading books are imported American and British-based books and only a mere 14% of the South African population are active book readers. Bala Books wishes to publish more local reading-book content for children and, authored by children.